My six-year-old niece is with my mom, her grandma.

Niece: “Do you have any lotion in this house?”

Grandma: “Yes, baby, there’s some in the bathroom. Go get some.”

Niece: “Then why don’t you use it on your feet?”

My family members all live in different states. I live in Pennsylvania, my sister is in Kentucky, and my parents spend most of the year in Florida and come up to Pennsylvania in the summer. Most of our communication with my sister’s kids is over the phone.

My mom is having a very hard time bonding with my four-year-old niece. Since I’m currently my niece’s best friend and we spend hours each night talking on the phone or FaceTime, I decide to tell my mom what initially got [Niece] to warm up to me. (This is partly to get her to bond with my mom and also so I can get some of my evenings back.) 

Me: “Have you ever heard of Funko Pop?”

Mom: “Not really.”

Me: “They’re these stupid little collectible figurines for celebrities or characters from media. I had a few Disney ones just for particular favorite characters like Merida. One day, [Niece] wanted me to show her my apartment, and she saw it. She was really excited, so I got a few more, and now every time she calls, she wants to see my princesses.”

Mom: “And that’s why she started to want to call you?”

Me: “Yeah. I mean, no offense, but a boring adult with nothing that she’s interested in. Get a few, and she’ll like to see them.”

I decide to send my mom two “Encanto” figures, figuring it can be her starter pack, as [Niece] is obsessed with “Encanto”. My mom is beyond excited to try and bond with [Niece].

Tonight, I get my regular call from [Niece], and she asks to see my figures. 

Niece: “Pap showed me that he has princesses, too!”

Me: “Did Nana show you, too?”

Niece: “No!”

Interesting.

As soon as we hang up, I call my parents. 

Mom: “Hey, what’s up?”

Me: “Were you aware that [Niece] was already shown the Encanto figures?”

Mom: “That rat b*****d. He knew that was supposed to be my ticket in!”

She confronted my dad on the phone with me, and we thoroughly ganged up on him. I’m planning to send more Pops down with instructions to hide them so he can’t steal her thunder again as [Niece] already likes my dad.

When I was a teenager and didn’t have quite all my common sense in place yet, my uncle was hosting a BIG party because a notable family member was turning eighty. Once the house was fully prepared, I thought that the best way to distract the kiddos and get all their wiggles out was to play my Tossing Game with them.

In the back room, I put a mattress on the floor, piled all the pillows in the house on top, and one at a time began to spin each toddler cousin, nephew, and assorted hanger-on in a big circle going, “One… two… three!”, before throwing them into the pile.

The kiddos love the Tossing Game. They’d crash, clamber out, and jump right back in line for another turn.

It took me a while to realise that there were suddenly MORE kids than I remembered throwing. Like, a lot more. Guests had started to arrive, and every. Single. Little. Kid. Immediately found their way to the back room to join in. I’d gone from seven to twenty-one.

Now, it took a bit, but then Teenager [Me] realised that maybe throwing STRANGERS’ kids might be a problem.

To solve this, I promptly went out of the back room with the gaggle of twenty toddlers to loudly ask the party at large:

Me: “Hey, is it okay if I throw your kids at a wall?”

At that point, the eighty-year-old guest of honour decided that rather than socialising with all his friends, HE’D like to throw the kids at the wall, too, thanks.

My mom regularly video calls with my niece, my sister’s child, who is two years old. My mother also has four cats. Every time my sister initiates a call, my niece asks to see the cats. I overhear the most recent video call.

Mom: “Hi, [Niece], sweetie!”

Niece: “Kitty?”

Sister: *Exasperated* “Can you at least say hi to Grammie first?”

Niece: *Cheerily* “No, thank you, Grammie! Kitty, please!”

I joined my sister on an early Christmas-time mini-vacation. I slept over at their house the night before so we could all pile into her mini-van at an ungodly hour for a long drive to our destination. The intent was for the kids to sleep through the first few hours of the drive before we got breakfast, but her son woke up enough during the transition to the car that he would no longer settle back to sleep until he was fed, so we made plans to stop at a fast food restaurant.

Nephew: “Can I have a soda?”

Sister: “Absolutely not.”

Nephew: “But I’m thirsty.”

Sister: “Then drink your water.”

They went back and forth. My nephew kept acting as if drinking water would kill him, and his mother insisted that he must not be thirsty enough to need soda in that case. Finally, he begrudgingly grabbed an insulated container next to him and tried to drink some. After a moment of confusion, his demeanor suddenly changed to excitement.

Nephew: “It’s frozen! Mom, it’s finally frozen!”

His half-asleep little sister perked up at this and acted excited, too, in a sort of punch-drunk way through her exhaustion.

Niece: *Chanting* “Frozen, frozen!”

Nephew: “I need a soda since my water’s frozen.”

Sister: “Not happening, kiddo, but we’ll top off your waters at [Restaurant].”

Niece: “With good water?”

Sister: “Yes, with the good water.”

Niece: *To her brother* “We get good water now!”

Me: “Okay, what exactly are you going to do to this water to make them that excited? Mixing it with cocaine?”

Sister: “Well, that would keep it from freezing…”

Nephew: “We get sugar now!”

Eventually, through my nephew’s excited explanation, I finally pieced together what was happening. It seems both kids had water bottles that stayed in the car at all times in case they got thirsty during a drive, but in winter, the water tended to freeze overnight, making it impossible to drink. My sister had brushed off her high school chemistry and come up with a simple solution that almost anything mixed into the water would lower its freezing point enough to keep it from freezing overnight, and the children, of course, decided the best choice for water mixer was a somewhat excessive amount of sugar.

Apparently, they started begging to switch over to sugar water, also called “good water” by her youngest, as soon as it started getting cold, and since their mother refused to do this, they instead eagerly awaited the first early morning frozen water bottle as proof she had to finally switch over to using sugar.

Sister: “I can barely keep [Nephew] properly hydrated during summer, and yet, as soon as winter comes around, his mid-drive water consumption mysteriously triples. Can’t imagine why that would be.”

Nephew: “I’ll drink more in summer if you use sugar then, too! [Niece] thinks we should always use it. Right, [Niece]?”

Niece: “Always good water!”

Sister: “I think I’ve gotten them both addicted to sugar now.”

Me: “Well, it could be worse. You could have used the cocaine.”